13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi Read online

  Born John Christopher Stevens, he was fifty-two, never married, trim and long-limbed, with a high forehead crowned by puffy blond hair turning gray. His blinding smile drew people’s attention, but his expressive blue eyes held it. They could flash anger when needed but more often displayed Stevens’s true nature: thoughtful, inquisitive, empathetic, resolved, and patient.

  Raised in Northern California, Stevens was a saxophone-playing son of a lawyer father and a cellist mother. He graduated in 1982 from the University of California at Berkeley with a history degree. He spent two years in the Peace Corps, teaching English in the remote Atlas Mountains of Morocco, where he fell in love with the region and found his calling. In 1989, he received a law degree from the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Later, he received a master’s in national security studies from the National War College. For two years after becoming an attorney, Stevens practiced international trade law in Washington, DC, but his heart was set on the Foreign Service.

  His focus was the Middle East, and upon joining the State Department he won stints in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Israel, where he worked on Palestinian issues during the second intifada. He became fluent in Arabic and developed a taste for the strong, syrupy tea over which relationships in the region are forged. Between foreign postings, Stevens worked on Middle Eastern policy at the State Department headquarters in Washington and served as a Pearson Fellow with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

  In 2007, Stevens was appointed Deputy Chief of Mission, later chargé d’affaires, at the US Embassy in Tripoli. Within a year of his arrival in Libya, Stevens became a footnote to one of the many strange stories about Gaddafi. A diplomatic cable disclosed by WikiLeaks showed that in August 2008, Stevens tactfully warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the Libyan leader had his lecherous eye on her. “A self-styled intellectual and philosopher,” Stevens wrote to Rice, “he has been eagerly anticipating for several years the opportunity to share with you his views on global affairs.” During Rice’s visit to Libya in September 2008, Gaddafi confessed that he had a crush on her. Rice later called the attention “weird and a bit creepy.”

  Stevens returned to Washington to run the State Department’s Office of Multilateral Nuclear and Security Affairs. But when the Libyan revolution began in early 2011, the Obama administration wanted an experienced hand to reach out to the rebels. In March 2011, Stevens became the United States’ Special Representative to the anti-Gaddafi rebels’ umbrella political organization, the Libyan Transitional National Council, the TNC, based in Benghazi.

  With no commercial airlines flying into the war zone, Stevens arranged for a Greek cargo ship to sail from Malta to Benghazi carrying him, ten DS agents, and a political attaché. The ship’s hold bulged with armored vehicles, communications equipment, and supplies needed to establish a temporary diplomatic station. They arrived on April 5, 2011, spent a night aboard ship, then set up shop in rooms at the downtown Tibesti Hotel. Rebel leaders in Benghazi frequently met at the Tibesti, which also housed the Italian and Qatari envoys, United Nations officials, and foreign journalists covering the war.

  The embassy in Tripoli had suspended operations and evacuated all Americans six weeks earlier, so Stevens’s arrival made him the highest-ranking US diplomat in Libya. He and Political Officer Nathan Tek immediately scheduled an endless stream of meetings with TNC officials and civic and business leaders, to provide US policymakers with information about the rebellion and to develop relationships in anticipation of a post-Gaddafi Libya. As Stevens told a State Department magazine in a story published in December 2011, they also funneled nonlethal aid to the TNC and created a program in cooperation with the rebel council to collect shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles called MANPADS.

  On June 1, 2011, an explosion in the Tibesti Hotel parking lot destroyed two cars and blew out windows hundreds of feet away. A rebel spokesman described it as an attempt by Gaddafi loyalists to show they could still strike at will. Soon after, Stevens’s security team learned of what US officials described as “a credible threat” against the Special Envoy mission and raced to find safer lodgings.

  On June 21, 2011, Stevens and his Special Envoy team moved to a walled sanctuary of blooming guava and palm trees, wide swaths of emerald-green lawns, rows of gnarled vines heavy with purple grapes, and abundant flowers. Located in the Western Fwayhat neighborhood, the property opened onto a gravel street. Its rear wall bordered the Fourth Ring Road.

  Among its convenient charms, the property was across the street from an upscale restaurant called the Venezia, which was popular with well-heeled Libyans and the multinational diplomatic corps. Throughout the summer, the onetime private compound was renovated for increased security. By August 2011 it was dubbed the United States’ Special Mission Compound in Benghazi.

  The Compound covered nearly eight verdant acres. One appeal of the property to the Diplomatic Security staff was that the main buildings were set back far enough from the surrounding walls to protect inhabitants against car bombs. In addition, the DS team arranged for sections of the walls to be reinforced and raised to nine feet, though some areas remained eight feet high. A barbed-wire crown topped most of the wall’s length.

  Inside and outside the property’s three gates, rows of concrete Jersey barriers were arranged in serpentine patterns to prevent truck or car bombers from crashing through to the Compound. Steel traffic bars were installed to control vehicle entrance to the property, which occurred primarily through an imposing main gate in the north wall topped with spikes and known as Gate C1. To the side of the main vehicle gate entrance was a narrower pedestrian gate. A secondary gate, farther east along the same wall, was called B1, or Bravo gate. The third gate to the Compound, in the wall opposite the main gate, was called Gate C3 and opened out to the Fourth Ring Road. Other enhanced security measures on the property included sandbag fortifications, high-intensity lighting, explosive-detection devices, and an Internal Defense Notification System—known as a drop-and-cover alarm—in case the Compound came under attack.

  All the buildings were reinforced with security measures, starting with the largest structure on the property, a split-level yellow concrete building known as Villa C. Stevens’s working and living quarters were there, and it eventually gained an affectionate nickname, “Château Christophe.” Part of Villa C, in the area where several bedrooms were located, was fortified as a safe haven, with locked metal grilles on the windows. At the interior entrance to the safe-haven area stood a heavy metal gate with double locks that looked like the door to a jail cell. Exterior wooden doors were hardened with steel. For added protection, the safe-haven area contained a last-refuge safe room, essentially a windowless closet that contained water, medical supplies, and other necessities.

  A second structure, on the east side of the Compound, was Building B, also known as the Cantina, which contained bedrooms and a dining area. Next door to the Cantina was a third building, the Tactical Operations Center, known as the TOC, which served as the security and communications headquarters for DS agents based at the Compound. The fourth and final building on the property was a guesthouse by the front gate that had been converted into a barracks. It typically housed four armed Libyan security guards, all members of the 17 February militia. Supplementing the militiamen were other locally hired guards, unarmed, who were provided under a contract with a British security company called Blue Mountain Libya.

  To the uninitiated, the precautions might have seemed impressive. But in the realm of modern diplomatic protection, the Special Mission Compound in Benghazi was only modestly secure. Some might even say insecure, in light of recent history and relative to other American diplomatic outposts in hostile places.

  After the 1983 bombings of the American Embassy and Marine Barracks in Beirut, and the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Congress established and strengthened security standards for embassies and consulates. Buildings needed to
be engineered to withstand attacks by rocket-propelled grenades, and properties required deterrents to prevent hostile forces from entering en masse. The buildings also had to be invulnerable to fire.

  But the Special Mission Compound in Benghazi was never an embassy or a consulate. Leased at a cost of about a half-million dollars a year, it was officially only a temporary residential outpost for American envoys and their DS protectors. The strictest security standards mandated by Congress didn’t apply, so the fortifications at the Compound were essentially judgment calls. In hindsight, those calls were grossly inadequate. A December 2012 government review concluded that the Compound “included a weak and very extended perimeter, an incomplete interior fence, no mantraps and unhardened entry gates and doors. Benghazi was also severely under-resourced with regard to weapons, ammunition, [nonlethal deterrents] and fire safety equipment, including escape masks.”

  Less than six months after Stevens and his team moved into the Compound, Gaddafi was gone and the US Embassy in Tripoli was reestablished under Ambassador Gene Cretz. Stevens returned to Washington, and the Special Envoy post remained unfilled.

  In December 2011, a month after Stevens left Benghazi, a memo circulated around the State Department arguing for a continued US presence in Benghazi. One reason for maintaining the Compound, the memo argued, was to reassure residents of eastern Libya that the United States would object if the new Tripoli-based government neglected or abused them as Gaddafi had. Although no new Special Envoy was chosen to replace Stevens, the Benghazi Compound did remain open, overseen by a rotating cast of State Department employees who stayed brief periods and, while there, held the title “Principal Officer.”

  In early 2012, Cretz was nominated to become ambassador to Ghana, and Stevens was a natural choice to replace him. At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Stevens struck a note of optimism: “There is tremendous goodwill for the United States in Libya now. Libyans recognize the key role the United States played in building international support for their uprising against Gaddafi. I saw this gratitude frequently over the months I served in Benghazi—from our engagements with the revolution’s leadership to our early work with civil society and new media organizations.”

  When Stevens was confirmed as ambassador, the State Department featured him in a video that reintroduced him to Libyans. He talked about his upbringing, his education, and his experiences, as photos from his earlier days in Libya and other parts of the Arab world flashed on the screen. “Now I’m excited to return to Libya to continue the great work we’ve started,” Stevens says on the video, “building a solid partnership between the United States and Libya to help you, the Libyan people, achieve your goals.” He closed by promising that the two countries would “work together to build a free, democratic, prosperous Libya.” Stevens’s priority would be to win trust rather than points, to gain long-lasting respect rather than superficial concessions. He would defy the stereotypical image of the self-important American ambassador; instead, Stevens would radiate humility.

  Armed with his new title, Ambassador Stevens arrived in Tripoli on May 26, 2012. He spent the next three months reestablishing relationships from his earlier posting in the capital. But his optimism was tested from the start by instability and violence.

  From his office in Tripoli, Stevens observed firsthand the deteriorating security situation in Libya during the late spring of 2012. Beyond his concerns about the fledgling Arab democracy, Stevens worried about his staff and himself. In early June, he sent an e-mail to a State Department official in Washington asking that two six-man Mobile Security Detachments, known as MSD teams, of specially trained DS agents be allowed to remain in Libya through the national elections being held in July and August. Stevens wrote that State Department personnel “would feel much safer if we could keep two MSD teams with us through this period [to support] our staff and [provide a personal detail] for me and the [Deputy Chief of Mission] and any VIP visitors.” The request was denied, Stevens was told, because of staffing limitations and other commitments.

  A month later, on July 9, 2012, Stevens and the embassy’s security staff, led by DS agent Eric Nordstrom, asked the State Department to extend the presence of a Site Security Team, or SST, that consisted of sixteen active-duty military special operators. The Defense Department’s Africa Command, which oversaw the unit, was willing to extend the team’s stay in Tripoli. But State Department officials decided that DS agents and locally hired guards could do the job, and that the SST operators weren’t needed. In the weeks that followed, General Carter Ham, head of Africa Command, twice asked Stevens if he wanted the SST to remain in Libya. Despite his earlier request to extend the team’s stay, Stevens wouldn’t buck the decision of State Department officials in Washington. He declined Ham’s offers and the SST left Libya, even as Stevens moved forward with plans to visit the restive city of Benghazi.

  However worried he might have been about security, to his staff Stevens remained outwardly upbeat, even inspirational. He posed for so many photos with Libyan children, grandmothers, local officials, and shopkeepers that embassy staffers half wondered whether anyone in Tripoli didn’t have a picture of himself with the American ambassador.

  On the day in late August 2012 that Stevens sat on the floor for dinner in a Berber home, his companion was a young Foreign Service Officer named Hannah Draper. Several weeks earlier, she’d written a starry-eyed blog post about him: “Ambassador Stevens is legendary in Libya for spending almost the entire period of the revolution in Benghazi, liaising with the rebels and leading a skeleton crew of Americans on the ground to support humanitarian efforts and meeting up-and-coming political leaders. Several Libyans have told me how much it means to them that he stayed here throughout the revolution, losing friends and suffering privations alongside ordinary Libyans. We could not ask for a better Ambassador to represent America during this crucial period in Libyan history.”

  If Draper sounded like an awestruck underling, her blog post reflected a widely held belief among diplomats and officials in Libya and Washington: Chris Stevens had the brains and courage that made him the right man for a monumental job. A dangerous job, too.

  Two days before Stevens and Draper ate their meal of bazeen, the State Department issued a severely worded travel warning for Libya, cautioning that “political violence in the form of assassinations and vehicle bombs has increased in both Benghazi and Tripoli.… Inter-militia conflict can erupt at any time or any place in the country.”

  Still, Stevens refused to abandon his optimism. “The whole atmosphere has changed for the better,” he wrote in an e-mail to friends and family in the summer of 2012. “People smile more and are much more open with foreigners. Americans, French, and British are enjoying unusual popularity. Let’s hope it lasts.” At least that was his view from Tripoli.

  When Stevens arrived in Benghazi on September 10, 2012, more than nine eventful months had passed since he’d last set foot in the city. The public highlight of his visit was scheduled to be yet another ribbon cutting, this one at a local school. The ceremony would celebrate the opening of an “American Corner,” a US-government-sponsored “friendly, accessible space” stocked with bilingual books, magazines, films, posters, guidebooks, and other materials for Libyans to learn about the United States. The Libyan man who ran the school had rescued an American F-15 fighter pilot who ejected from his doomed plane when it was shot down during the 2011 revolution.

  Outside public view, Stevens intended to reconnect with old friends and contacts, and to solidify relationships with local government officials, business leaders, and fellow foreign diplomats in Benghazi. He seemed to have a clear-eyed view of the dangers he faced. “Militias are power on the ground,” he wrote in his diary on September 6, according to The New York Times. “Dicey conditions, including car bombs, attacks on consulate,” Stevens continued. “Islamist ‘hit list’ in Benghazi. Me targeted on a prominent website (no more off compound jogging).”
<
br />   For security, two DS agents accompanied Stevens from Tripoli. Three other DS agents were already stationed at the Special Mission Compound, bringing the DS contingent in Benghazi to five.

  Also at the Compound to greet Stevens was a State Department political officer named David McFarland, who’d been serving temporarily as the Benghazi Principal Officer. With Stevens’s arrival, McFarland would return to Tripoli early the next morning. The final American at the Compound was a State Department computer expert who’d arrived a week earlier to ensure that the ambassador would enjoy secure communications. His name was Sean Smith, though many of his friends knew him best as “Vile Rat.”

  At thirty-four, Smith had been a State Department employee for a decade, after spending six years in the Air Force. Married with two young children, he had a close-cropped goatee, a wry smile that turned his eyes into narrow slits, and a legendary reputation in a far corner of the online gaming community.

  Smith was a master player in EVE Online, a science-fiction video game in which characters pilot customized spaceships through thousands of digital galaxies. Although the futuristic fantasy is ostensibly about mineral mining throughout the universe, EVE is a game within a game: The most intense action flows from the political machinations of tens of thousands of paying subscribers arranged into alliances. Smith’s online persona and call sign was “Vile Rat,” a diplomat and spy who manipulated complex relationships on behalf of his alliance, called GoonSwarm. In his real life, Smith was soft-featured, clever, and humble. In his fantasy life, his gaming avatar was cunning and looked like Smith’s evil doppelgänger, with a hawkish nose and a perpetual scowl. The one thing Smith and his avatar had in common was a shaved head. To fill his downtime while in Benghazi, Smith kept in regular touch not only with his family but also with his fellow EVE players.